Labour split over Ken Livingstone

Tony Blair was plunged into the bad old days of the Labour Party today in a bitter Left-Right battle over Ken Livingstone.

Labour's ruling National Executive Committee was meeting this morning to decide whether the Mayor of London should be re-admitted to the party from which he was expelled two years ago. The vote, until a few weeks ago, widely assumed to be a walkover for the leadership, was said today to be "on a knife edge".

A decision to let him back in would be a slap in the face for Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, who said only three weeks ago that Mr Livingstone had told the committee "a tissue of lies" and that he did not believe him whatever he said. It would also be a severe rebuff for Gordon Brown and party chairman Charles Clarke, both long-standing foes.

More significantly, it would show that the national executive, for the first time in more than a decade, is out of control of the leadership, threatening trouble and dissent for Tony Blair for years to come.

Whether for that reason or not, Mr Blair was said to be taking a backseat in today's clash. Although he will be at the NEC meeting and is known to be disappointed in Mr Livingstone's record as Mayor, the message was that he would not lead the attack.

Mr Livingstone was expelled in a April 2000 for standing as an independent in the mayoral election against the official Labour candidate, Frank Dobson. Under Labour rules, the "sentence" is for a fixed five-year term.

Backers of Mr Livingstone, including a narrow majority of London Labour MPs, and a number of Labour members of the Greater London Authority have argued he was forced out only because the selection process was rigged.